History
The first official youth association of the church—the Young Gentlemen's and Young Ladies' Relief Society—was formally organized by youth in Nauvoo, Illinois, on the advice of church founder, Joseph Smith, in March 1843. The group had held several informal meetings since late January of that year under the supervision of apostle Heber C. Kimball.[3] The Young Women organization of the church was founded by LDS Church president Brigham Young in 1869 as the Young Ladies' Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association. At the organization's founding, Young set out his vision for the young women of the church:
I desire them to retrench from extravagance in dress, in eating and even in speech. The time has come when the sisters must agree ... to set an example worthy of imitation before the people of the world . ... There is need for the young daughters of Israel to get a living testimony of the truth . ... We are about to organize a retrenchment Association, which I want you all to join, and I want you to vote to retrench in ... everything that is not good and beautiful, not to make yourselves unhappy, but to live so you may be truly happy in this life and in the life to come.[4]
From 1869 to 1880, the new Young Women organization functioned at the local ward level, without a general presidency. In 1871, the organization was renamed the Young Ladies' Retrenchment Association, or YL for short. In 1877, the organization's name was again changed to the Young Ladies' National Mutual Improvement Association (YLNMIA) as a companion organization to the church's Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, which had been founded in 1875.
On June 19, 1880, the first general presidency of the YLNMIA with church-wide authority was organized under the direction of LDS Church president John Taylor, with Elmina Shepard Taylor as the first general president. In 1904, the name of the YLNMIA was shorted to the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association (YLMIA) and in 1934 it was changed to the Young Women's Mutual Improvement Association (YWMIA).
The "Aaronic Priesthood MIA Young Women" was the name of the LDS Church's official youth organization between 1972 and 1974. It was formed by consolidating the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association and the YWMIA into one organization. Leadership of the organization was shared between the presiding bishopric and the general presidency of the Young Women. The combined organization was short-lived, and in 1974 the organization was again divided into the renamed Young Men and the Young Women.
From 1994 to 2013, an annual General Young Women Meeting was held in March, where typically the Young Women general presidency and a member of the church's First Presidency would speak to the young women, their mothers, and the adult Young Women leaders. The meeting was broadcast via satellite to LDS Church meetinghouses throughout the world. The proceedings of the meeting were published in the May issues of the Liahona and Ensign magazines. Video and audio of the proceedings are archived and available for downloading on the church's website. In 2014, the meeting was replaced by a semiannual general women's meeting for those eight years of age and older.[5]
From 1959 until 2019, young women were sub-divided into three aged-based classes: Beehive (12–13 year olds), Mia Maids (14–15 year olds), and Laurels (16–17 year olds).[2][6] Also at the end of 2019, the Personal Progress program was discontinued and replaced by the Church's new "Children and Youth Program".[7]
